Above Average

Average

Below Average

Poor

Dayton Ward gets to close out both the year and the The Fall saga with the fifth and last entry, Peacable Kingdoms. Street date: December 30th!

Blurb:

Following the resolution of the fertility crisis that nearly caused their extinction, the Andorian people now stand ready to rejoin the United Federation of Planets. The return of one of its founding member worlds is viewed by many as the first hopeful step beyond the uncertainty and tragedy that have overshadowed recent events in the Alpha Quadrant. But as the Federation looks to the future and the special election to name President Bacco’s permanent successor, time is running out to apprehend those responsible for the respected leader’s brutal assassination. Even as elements of the Typhon Pact are implicated for the murder, Admiral William Riker holds key knowledge of the true assassins— a revelation that could threaten the fragile Federation-Cardassian alliance.

Questions and concerns also continue to swell around Bacco’s interim successor, Ishan Anjar, who uses the recent bloodshed to further a belligerent, hawkish political agenda against the Typhon Pact. With the election looming, Riker dispatches his closest friend, Captain Jean-Luc Picard, in a desperate attempt to uncover the truth. But as Picard and the Enterprise crew pursue the few remaining clues, Riker must act on growing suspicions that someone within Ishan’s inner circle has been in league with the assassins from the very beginning . . . .

Finished the book about 30 mins ago. It is good book, but the weakest of the The Fall series.

I would rate The Crimson Shadow, A Ceremony of Losses and The Poisoned Chalice as some of best trek books and along side my favourites - The Destiny Trilogy, A Singular Destiny and DRGIII's Plagues of Night/Raise the Dawn.

Revelation & Dust took a while to get going, but once 'it all kicked off' it was great. I felt that Peaceable Kingdoms never found the 'high gear' the other 4 books possessed.

However, Peaceable Kingdoms carried the story and the series to a satisfying conclusion.

Just finished as well! I'll attempt to keep any major spoilers out until everyone else has read.

This book reads a lot like an episode of star trek, which made for an overall enjoyable read. I liked several of the new characters, and the flashbacks were some of my favorite parts. The overall story shifts between two main 'plots', although one at times feels a bit superfluous.

What I think people will most like about the book is where it leaves off the series. If you've had any complaints about the current story-lines, there's a good chance you'll be pleased with how the story comes to a conclusion.

Its hard to critique the book without talking about the fall series entirely. I think while overall the story was quite good, there may have been a bit of an over-complication of events. By the end of Peaceable Kingdoms there are two fairly huge conspiracies. I feel as though expanding upon one of them would have been preferable to using both. I'll probably elaborate on that further when more have read.

Then, I have something of the same complaint as I had about Typhon Pact, except moreso. Each of these books is supposed to be read as a stand alone. Except there's clearly a progression of events and information for the reader to receive. There's a big difference between 'each story is stand alone', and 'each story has a self contained story within it'. I would rather see crossover books numbered so that less time could be spent explaining what is going on. I completely get that readers need to be 'reminded' of things that happened in prior books... but there is a ton of explaining done in Peaceable Kingdoms. At times that got very tedious.

Overall though, this was the first series of trek lit I got to read as it was released, and I really enjoyed the experience. I can't wait until the next grouping of novels comes out.

If I had to rank the books in order it would go something like; Crimson Shadow --> Poisoned Chalice --> Peaceable Kingdoms -->A Ceremony of Losses --> Revelation and Dust.

^^ I totally agree about numbering books!! It may help people collect sets, but equally it disuade readers from getting books in a long-numbered series?

But really, I do wish there was a lot less explaining of past events in Trek books in general! Perhaps it is a silly annoyance, especially as new readers do need some explanation - but there are some other long-form tie-in fiction series where explanation is kept to a minimum, if at all used. For example another series that James Swallow contributes to - Black Library's flagpole Horus Heresy line (as well as several of their other lines) all seem to have minimal continuity explanation.

Of course this isn't always the case. I really loved The Crimson Shadow. Didn't it have very few continuity explanations (or indeed any explanations) of past book events? I think one just was assumed to probably have read Revelation and Dust, A Stitch in Time and The Never-Ending Sacrifice, as well as perhaps The Lotus Flower. It certainly made a smooth text even smoother. Other authors do the same too, but sometimes there is a lot of historical dumping (for example so heavily, if perhaps understandably, in Revelation and Dust).

Sorry for my complaint - it is perhaps unfair, but I sometimes wished the authors were released from obligations to explain ANYWAY, I can't wait to read Peaceable Kingdoms!!!

Picked up my copy today. Blew through it in about five hours (which is unusually fast, even for me; I find my TrekLit hard to put down. ).

Since it looks like not many people have read it yet, I'll refrain from posting my full thoughts (laden with spoilers!) just yet.

I agree with much of what Mimi said, though I think I enjoyed it less than she did, and I would not have the same rankings of The Fall books as she did.

My rankings would be, from best to worst:

The Crimson Shadow (this may be the best Trek novel ever)

A Ceremony of Losses (also great, though I think I would not want to reread it much)

Revelation and Dust (in hindsight, there is a lot that is beautiful in this novel)

The Poisoned Chalice (the stories and and writing for this novel are great, but I think it really suffered from "Middle Book In A Series" Syndrome; perhaps it should switch places with Revelation and Dust)

Peaceable Kingdoms (not that it's bad, per se, but it went against some pretty tough competition)

I'll simply say that I think we will have a lot to discuss as more people finish the series.

My thought process was that its not technically related to the discussion, so more of an aside rather than a spoiler.

As far as changes to the galaxy...I would say no. No where near as much as Destiny. I can see how it might change the novel-verse for a little bit, as the ending does set the stage for some different stories to be told. I wouldn't go into it expecting a huge toss up though.

I enjoyed it and found it a suitable wrap-up to the series. I did notice the reference to Arcturus as a smuggling haven and it took a bit of time to register where I'd heard that before. Way back when in "Entropy Effect". Nice callback, Dayton.

As an aside, I wonder about the Andorians who were trying to solve the reproduction crisis by transporter-duplicating (ala Tom Riker) Andorians. Is that going to come up again now that the background crisis is resolved?

My thought process was that its not technically related to the discussion, so more of an aside rather than a spoiler.

Click to expand...

Yeah, that was my thought process as well, though I also thought that it was better to give people the option to not see where it ranked, in case they wanted to read the book unbiased. (On the other hand, why such people would be reading this thread is beyond me.)

As far as changes to the galaxy...I would say no. No where near as much as Destiny. I can see how it might change the novel-verse for a little bit, as the ending does set the stage for some different stories to be told. I wouldn't go into it expecting a huge toss up though.

Click to expand...

Hmm, I would agree that it's not quite as galaxy-changing as Destiny. But I think The Fall will have basically as profound an effect on the novel series as Destiny did. Bigger real-world changes than in-universe changes. (Though there are some big in-universe changes, too.) I would say that the amount of toss-up suggested by the ending of The Poisoned Chalice is a reasonable expectation.